CONCORD, N.H. — The New Hampshire attorney general’s office has filed a civil lawsuit against Rep. Charlie Bass’s 2010 campaign committee, charging it “deliberately avoided” identifying itself as a sponsor of a negative push poll against Democrat Ann McLane Kuster during the 2010 campaign for New Hampshire’s 2nd District.

If the state is successful in its suit, the Bass campaign could be fined as much as $400,000 for the alleged violations of the state’s push poll statute. The campaign said it “strongly denies” the state’s allegations and will “vigorously defend the suit.”

It is the fourth time in the past 18 months that the attorney general has reached settlements or initiated civil enforcement actions related to election laws on push polling and so-called robocalls.

New Hampshire Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards said Tuesday, “There was an attempt at settlement” in this case, “but we couldn’t come to terms.”

In a statement Tuesday, the Bass campaign said, “The poll in question was a legitimate message testing survey, not a push poll. Our survey was the same type of message-testing poll conducted by virtually every major candidate for a federal office.

“It tested voters’ attitudes and opinions among a relatively small sample of voters, unlike a push poll, which targets a much larger group of voters with the intent of negatively persuading the voter,” said Bass Victory Committee spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne.

According to the attorney general’s petition, the Bass Victory Committee, with the help of an outside political shop called The Tarrance Group, failed to properly identify who was paying for about 400 negative push poll calls made in fall 2010 against Kuster, who was Bass’s Democratic opponent for the U.S. House that year and is challenging him again this year.

The attorney general’s office charged that at the request of Bass’s campaign manager, the identification of the group paying for the negative calls was changed from the Bass Victory Committee to the National Republican Congressional Committee because, according to an email by the campaign manager released by the attorney general, “they [the NRCC] are paying for half of it” and:

“I’d rather have any issues about ‘push polling’ be blamed on them [the NRCC] rather than us — especially with the date rape drug question in there.”

The NRCC later gave its approval for the disclaimer change.

The attorney general says that “as a result of the alleged deliberate attempt to avoid the requirement of the New Hampshire push poll law, the lawsuit against the Bass committee seeks civil penalties of up to $1,000 per call.

The attorney general’s petition does not identify the campaign manager who wrote the email seeking the change in disclosure, either in its press release or in its petition to the court.

But Edwards confirmed that the person who wrote the email was David Kanevsky, an out-of-state Bass aide. He is not involved in the Bass campaign this year.

The state’s push poll law allows telephone calls that convey either positive or negative information about a candidate for public office in an attempt to conduct a legitimate poll or to gather information. But the law requires the caller to say that the call is “being made on behalf of, in support of, or in opposition to a particular candidate for public office; identify that candidate by name; and provide a telephone number from where the push polling is conducted.”

Bass campaign spokesman Tranchemontagne said, “The Bass Victory Committee has never conducted a push poll. The poll in question does not adhere to the form, purpose or statutory definition of a push poll. Though we are disappointed that the attorney general has chosen to litigate this matter, we are confident that we have the law on our side and will ultimately prevail.”

The attorney general’s office says its investigation began in September 2010, when it received a complaint about a push poll from state Democratic Rep. Kathleen Taylor . The suit says the calls “were described as being negative against” Kuster.

The petition says the attorney general’s office subpoenaed the Bass Victory Committee on Oct. 24, 2011, more than a year after the initial complaint was made, seeking documents related to the calls.

In response, the petition says, the Bass committee provided a script for the poll, but its legal counsel told the attorney general the campaign “had checked its records and could not locate any correspondence between the campaign and the Tarrance Group.” The attorney general’s office then withdrew its subpoena.

But on Feb. 2, 2012, “after further investigation,” a second subpoena was issued “to verify the accuracy of prior representations that no correspondence between the campaign and the Tarrance Group could be located.”

In response to the second subpoena, the Bass campaign “provided the attorney general’s office with more than 500 pages of email records, including drafts of the script and numerous email communications between employees and agents of the Bass Committee and the Tarrance Group.”

The petition says the final version of the script “demonstrates that the calls were made on behalf of the Bass Committee” and the documents provided in response to the second subpoena “establish the Bass Campaign was involved with editing the final drafts of the script.”

The action against Bass is the most recent development in stepped-up enforcement of the push poll law by the attorney general.

News reports last month that the attorney general has been intensifying its enforcement prompted criticism from leading national pollster Whit Ayres, who told the New Hampshire Union Leader that, by “harassing” pollsters, the attorney general was “handing ammunition to those who would like to supplant New Hampshire’s primary as first-in-the-nation.”

But in a statement Tuesday, state Attorney General Michael Delaney said, “My office will continue to enforce New Hampshire’s election laws that require disclosures to citizens by candidates or political organizations engaging in campaign-related telephone calls or push polls. Our elected officials are calling for these investigations, and it is my obligation to enforce violations of the laws brought to my attention.”

John DiStaso writes the Granite Status column for the New Hampshire Union Leader. The New Hampshire Union Leader and POLITICO are partnering to cover the 2012 presidential race.